I 



II 






LD 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Price, - 25 Cents. 



THE 



Gossiping Guide 



TO 



Harvard 



AND 



Places of Interest in Cambridge 



After all, Cambridge delighteth my heart exceedingly. 

— Longfellow 



Cambridge Tribune 

Harvard Square, Cambridge 

1892 



Msm mamt 



Wurtemburg * Trays 

Are the latest and prettiest thing out 
for SOUVENIRS, having views 
of Longfellow House, Massachusetts 
Hall, Hemenway Gymnasium, Me- 
morial Hall and Austin Hall 
75 Cents Each. 

Souuetyirs 

In ioo shapes, ranging in price 
from 25 cents to 75 cents. 

Photographs 

Of all the places of interest in CAMBRIDGE and 

the UNIVERSITY, and of Lowell, 

Longfellow, etc. 

Book of 25 Cambridge Views, . 35 cents. 

Book of 45 Harvard Views, . 50 cents. 

Both of these Books for 75 cents. 



Amee Brothers, 

Boo^elleift •> j&&tioi[ei [ & •> EngiWefg, 
5 HARVARD SQUARE, CAMBRID&E, MASS. 

Mail Orders will receive prompt attention. 



— 



■ p. V 




James Russell Lowell 



THE 



? 



Gossiping Guide 



TO 



I Harvard 

• J AND 

Places of Interest in Cambridge 




H./ 



After all, Cambridge delighteth my heart exceedingly. 

— Longfellow 



Cambridge Tribune 

Harvard Square, Cambridge 
1892 



'9*<r?x 



-7 






Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1892 
By F. Stanhope Hill. 



Graves & Henry, Printers, Cambridge. 



FORE-WORD. 



I F I seem to the reader sometimes to have given 
* stories in place of facts, it has been through 
an endeavor to make these buildings and walks 
appear to the stranger clothed in the traditions 
and associations which alone must give them in- 
terest. 

My title-page owes parentage to the "Gossiping 
Guide to Oxford," but I can hardly hope for the 
great success which that publication has achieved. 
Charles Knowles Bolton. 



PCKY. 



A. — Austin Hall. Law School. 

A. C. — Appleton Chapel. 

A. A. $.— Alpha Delta Phi Club- 
House. 

B.— Boylston Hall. 

Be.— Beck Hall. 

C. — College House. 

Cy. — Carey Athletic Building. 

D.— Divinity Hall. 

Da.— Dane Hall. 

D. H. — Divinity House. 

D. L. — Divinity Library. 

F. Foxcroft House. 

G.— Grays Hall. 

Gy. — Gymnasium. 

H.— Hollis Hall. 

Ha.— Harvard Hall. 

H. C— Holden Chapel. 

Hi.— Hilton Block. 

Hy. — Holworthy HaU. 

Hke. — Holyoke House. 

Ho. — Hospital. 

H. P. Club.— Hasty Pudding Club- 
House, Holyoke St. 

J. — Jefferson Physical Laboratory. 

L.— Little's Block. 

Lb. — Library. Gore Hall. 

L. S. S. — Lawrence Scientific 
School. 

M.— Matthews Hall. 

Mm. — Memorial Hall. 

Mn. — Manter Block. 

Ms. — Massachusetts Hall. 

O. G. — Old Gymnasium. 

P. — Peabody Museum. 

P'c'l'n. — Porcellian Club-House, 
Harvard St. 

Q'cy. — Quincy Hall. 

R.— Read's Block and Post-Office. 

S. — Stoughton Hall. 

Se.— Sever Hall. 

Sh. — Shepherd Block. 

So. — Society House. 

T.— Thayer Hall. 

U.— University Hall. 

W.— Weld Hall. 

Wa. — Wadsworth House. 

W. H.— Walter Hastings Hall. 

Z. — University Museum. 

Z. *.— Zeta Psi Society House. 



26. 



15.— C. L. Smith. 
16.— J. K. Paine. 
17.— G. L. Kittredge. 
18.— J. E. Wolff. 
19. — G. Weinschenk. 

K. Fran eke. 

R. L. Sanderson. 
( J. P. Cooke. 
2 '- \ O. W. Huntington 
28.— A. P. Peabody. 
29.— C. W. Eliot. 
30. — N. S. Shaler. 
31.— C. C. Langdell. 
32. — A. Agassiz. 
32A. — J. M. Peirce. 
33. — F. C. de Sumichrast. 
33A. — A. A. Howard. 
34. — S. M. Macvane. 
35. — The late J. Lovering. 
40. — W. James. 
42.— J. D. Whitney. 
43. — J. H. Arnold. 
44. — J. B. Ames. 
45.— H. W. Torrey. 

W. C. Lane. 

A. R. Marsh. 
47— F. G. Peabody. 

( W. B. Hills. 
53- { D. A. Sargent. 
53A.— E. S. Wood. 
54. — C. H. Moore. 
55. — E. L. Mark. 
56.— H. P. Walcott. 
57.— A. B. Hart. 

58. — Fay House. Harvard Annex. 
59. — D. G. Lyon. 
59A.— G. H. Palmer. 
60.— J. B. Thayer. 
61. — A. McKenzie. 
62. — J. Smith. 
63.— F. Bolles. 
64.— S. Williston. 
65.— J. W. White. 
66.— W. W. Goodwin. 
67.— P. B. Marcou. 
68. — E. Emerton. 
69.— The late S. Watson. 
69A.— C. P. Parker. 
71. — H. C. G. von Jagemann. 
80.— C. C. Everett. 



46. 



81.— W. H. Tillinghast. 
Concord Ave. is at the extreme left of the map, just above Berkeley St. 
ft crosses Garden St. near Follen St. Craigie St. joins Concord Ave. at 
the left of Fig. 65. Mt. Auburn St. is at the bottom of the page at Fig. 19. 
North Avenue begins at Harvard Sq. and passes north by the Common, 
east side, and at the west end of Jarvis St. Charles River and the Weld 
Boat-House are directly south of Harvard Sq., following Boylston St. 



THE 

Gossiping Guide to Harvard 

A Word of Early History. 

/CAMBRIDGE was originally known as New- 
^-^ town, and its first settlers arrived in 1631. 
Mr. Bynner's " Penelope's Suitors " gives a pretty, 
quaint picture of these early years in the Colony. 
October 28th, 1636, the General Court of Massa- 
chusetts Bay voted "to give 400I. towards a 
schoole or colledge." In 1637 the college was or- 
dered established at Newtown, and the name 
changed to Cambridge. 

In 1637 Nathaniel Eaton was appointed pro- 
fessor of the school, and under his superintendence 
a small wooden house was built (near Wadsworth 
House), with an acre of land around it and some 
thirty apple trees. Eaton "entertained one Na- 
thaniel Briscoe, a gentleman born, to be his usher," 
but Briscoe complained, after three days, of receiv- 
ing 200 stripes about the head, and the scholars 
rebelled at the bad food. As a result, Eaton was 
discharged. In March, 1639, tne college took the 
name of Rev. John Harvard, late of Emmanuel 
College, Cambridge, who died at Charlestown in 



10 GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 

1638, leaving his library of 260 volumes and one- 
half his estate (about ^780) to the college. 

Students were arranged according to the social 
rank of their parents. One Indian, Caleb Cheeshah- 
teaumuck, took a degree, but died the following 
year. Of these early days more will be said in 
connection with the college buildings. 

The Presidents of Harvard. 

Henry Dunster, 1640-1654. 

Charles Chauncy, 1654-1672. 

Leonard Hoar, 1672-1675. 

Urian Oakes, 1675-1681. 

John Rogers, 1682-1684. 

Increase Mather, 1685-1701. 

Samuel Willard, 1 701-1707. 

John Leverett, 1708-1724. 

Benjamin Wadsworth, 1725-1737. 

Edward Holyoke, 1 737-1 769. 

Samuel Locke, 1770-1773. 

Samuel Langdon, 1774-1780. 

Joseph Willard, 1 781-1804. 

Samuel Webber, 1806-18 10. 

John Thornton Kirkland, 1810-1828. 

josiah quincy, 1829-1845. 

Edward Everett, 1846-1849. 

Jared Sparks, 1849-1853. 

James Walker, 1853-1860. 

Cornelius Conway Felton, 1860-1862. 

Thomas Hill, 1862-1868. 

Charles William Eliot, 1869- 



GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. II 

The growth of the university has been due in 
part, perhaps, to the progressive spirit in the col- 
lege government, which does not permit the grad- 
uate, however engrossed he may become in the 
questions of the day, to feel that his alma mater 
in her quieter duties is less abreast of the times. 
There are in the college proper 1500 students, and 
in the university 2700. 

Cambridge 

Is reached by carriage, or by electric and horse 
cars from Bowdoin Square, and from Park Square, 
Boston, at intervals of a few minutes until mid- 
night, and from Bowdoin Square hourly, on the 
half hour, from 12.30 a.m. until morning. Cars 
bearing the signs, " Harvard Square," " Mount 
Auburn," "Newton," "North Avenue," or "Arling- 
ton," all enter Harvard Square, after a ride of thirty 
minutes. The new 

City Hall, 

Of light stone with dark trimmings, and pointed 
clock tower, on a slight elevation, is passed on the 
right (Main Street, corner Inman), the gift of F. H. 
Rindge of Los Angeles. Cal. Mr. Rindge gave 
also the Public Library, a handsome building at 
the corner of Broadway and Trowbridge Street; 
the Manual Training School, and land for the Eng- 
lish High School, which stand on either side of the 
library. 



12 GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 

Dana Street, 

On the right, is the dividing line between Cam- 
bridgeport and Old Cambridge. The poet Long- 
fellow, in a letter written soon after accepting a 
professorship at Harvard, spoke of the college 
town, " three miles from Boston." A Hessian 
prisoner of war, in 1777, wrote: " Cambridge is a 
small place, having no attraction save Harvard 
College and its large buildings. . . . The en- 
tire neighborhood between Cambridge and Boston 
is filled with a number of bare and treeless hills." 
We pass the Baptist Church, on the right, and im- 
mediately afterward Quincy Hall and 

Beck Hall, 

At the entrance to Quincy Square, dormitories not 
owned by the university. The college buildings 
now appear on the right. 

Leaving the car at Harvard Square, and retrac- 
ing our steps to the first crossing, just beyond the 
University Bookstore, we enter the college grounds, 

with 

Wadsworth House 

On the right, a wooden structure of two stories 
and gambrel roof, with dormer windows, facing 
to the south. The room nearest the gate is occu- 
pied each forenoon by one of the university 
preachers, where he may be visited by students, 



GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 



13 



The Bursar's office is in the brick attachment at 
the rear, for payment of term bills, securing of 
rooms, etc. The other rooms in the building are 
rented to students. This is, next to Massachusetts, 
the oldest of the college buildings, erected in 1726, 
the General Court giving £1000 to build a house for 
"the Reverend the President of Harvard College," 
and occupied by President Wadsworth and his suc- 
cessors until Mr. Sparks was elected in 1849. 
Washington lived here a few days before going to 
"Craigie House," being influenced perhaps to 
make the change by the appearance of a lighted 
shell in the Square, thrown, says the daughter of 
President Quincy, from the British works on 
Copp's Hill, Boston. 

The old meeting-house, built in 1756, once 
stood at the left, on the corner now rounded off to 
enlarge the Square. The small brick building at 
the left is 

Dane Hall, 

Occupied in 1832 as a law school, later by a coop- 
erative society for the sale of text-books, furniture 
and clothing. Here are given Prof. J. K. Paine's 
courses in music and Prof. F. G. Peabody's courses 
in ethics and social science. The walk leads to the 
college yard, with 

Matthews Hall 

On the left and Grays on the immediate right. 



14 GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 

Matthews, given by the father of Mayor Matthews 
of Boston, begun in 1870, of brick with stone 
trimmings, in the Gothic style, has sixty suites of 
rooms, each consisting of a study and one or two 
bed-rooms. One half the yearly receipts goes in the 
form of scholarships to students who expect to en- 
ter the Episcopal ministry. In front of Matthews 
stood the 

Indian College, 

Erected in 1666 "for the conveniencye of six hop- 
full Indians youthes," and pulled down in 1698, 
one " hopf ull " having graduated, and one living to 
complete part of the course before the white man's 
civilization killed him. 

Grays Hall, 

With the date of the founding of the college, 1636, 
and of the erection of the hall, 1863, on a tablet, 
commemorates the generous gifts of the well-known 
Gray family of Boston. Passing in front of Grays, 
we come to 

Weld Hall, 

On the left, facing Matthews, built in 1872 by 
Wm. F. Weld, in memory of his brother, Stephen 
Minot Weld. There are commemorative tablets in 
the entry. Weld is a popular dormitory, and on 
warm evenings the Glee Club meets here, or on the 
steps of Matthews, to sing. 



GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 1 5 

The white stone building is University Hall, con- 
taining the college offices and some recitation rooms 
(see p. 35). At the right of Weld, beyond Grays, is 

Boylston Hall, 

Built in 1857, of Rockport granite, for a chemical 
laboratory, Ward Nicholas Boylston (of a famous 
Boston family, giving its name to Boylston Street) 
having left, long before, money toward this object 
Here Prof. J. P. Cooke has these many years lec- 
tured to a crowded class-room, making chemistry 
so interesting that his entrance is always greeted 
with applause. Thomas Hooker, Thomas Shepard 
and the Wigglesworths once lived on this spot, as a 
tablet in the south wall relates. To the east is 

Gore Hall (College Library), 

Built in 1841, of Quincy granite, Christopher Gore 
(Harvard, 1776) having bequeathed $70,000. The 
architecture is a modification of the chapel of King's 
College, Cambridge, the ahna mater of some of 
New England's early ministers. Enter at the door 
beneath the gilt cross, which was brought from 
Louisburg in 1745 by Massachusetts troops. The 
library, of 41,000 volumes in 1841, now has grown 
to about 400,000 volumes, including departmental 
libraries, and nearly as many pamphlets. The 
east wing was added in 1877, but the present 
building is already very much crowded. The 



1 6 GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 

library is open to any one for consultation. The 
author and subject catalogues are in the ash cases 
opposite the door. The stack, or shelves for 
books, is at the right, not open to the public. 
Turning to the left, enter at the glass doors the old 
building, thirty-five feet high from floor to groined 
ceiling. In the alcoves are periodicals and books 
on spacial subjects, as Colonial history, Fine Arts 
and Romance languages, reserved for use in con- 
nection with college courses. Ascending the iron 
stairs near the glass doors and the catalogues, past 
the bound volumes of periodicals, we reach the art 
room, containing autographs, Longfellow's "Excel- 
sior," Burns's " Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled," 
Milton, Pope, Napoleon, etc. ; also the only book 
from John Harvard's library remaining after the 
fire in 1764, John Downame's "Christian Warfare 
Against the Deuill, World and Flesh." March 27, 
1667, "Mr. Solomon Stoddard was chosen Library 
Keeper." August 23, 1679, was "paid to Jno. Pal- 
fry 36s. . . . pr 1 doz. Stooles made for ye Col- 
ledge Library." Many generous gifts increased the 
library, especially from the Hollis family of Lon- 
don ; but in 1764, the General Court having come 
to Cambridge to avoid the small-pox, a beam took 
fire and the library was destroyed. There are many 
funds given in memory of friends, with incomes 
varying from a small amount yearly to $4000 or 



GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. i<j 

more. The collection of folk-lore and mediaeval ro- 
mances (nearly 6000 volumes) is perhaps the largest 
in existence. There is a large collection of works 
relating to Dante ; there are also manuscripts of 
the poet Shelley, and Carlyle's library used in 
writing "Cromwell" and "Frederick the Great," 
left to Harvard in his will. The present librarian 
is Mr. Justin Winsor, author of the "Narrative and 
Critical History of America," " Christopher Colum- 
bus," and other works. 

The President's House, 

Of brick, with mansard roof, fronts on Quincy 
Street, and is approached from the college grounds 
by the walk which starts near the door of Gore 
Hall (library). Presidents Felton and Hill lived 
here before Mr. Eliot became president in 1869. 
On the morning of Class-day the seniors march two 
by two up the walk, preceded by a band, to break- 
fast with the president. On Quincy Street, imme- 
diately opposite the president's house, is the new 
Colonial Club-house, formerly the residence of the 
late Henry James, father of the well-known nov- 
elist. South of the president's house, and facing 
Quincy Square, we see 

Dana House, 

Built by Chief Justice R. H. Dana in 1823. In 
^839 a cupola with revolving dome was added, and 



15 GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD, 

much good astronomical work was done here until 
the present observatory (p. 44) was built in 1844. 
It is now the home of Rev. A. P. Peabody, who 
has given a long life to the welfare of the univer- 
sity. Turning northward, by the eastern end of 
Gore Hall, the large brick building before us, 
with arched doorway, dormer windows, and red tile 
roof, is 

Sever Hall, 

Erected in 1880, one of the finest recitation halls 
in the country, named for Mrs. Anne E. P. Sever, 
who gave $100,000. The architect was H. H. 
Richardson of Boston, who built Austin Hall (the 
law school) and Trinity Church, Boston. Visitors 
may get some conception of the interior of Sever 
Hall by looking into rooms in which no recitations 
are in progress. Exhibitions of pictures on the 
third floor, and lectures free to the public, are ad- 
vertised on the boards inside at the left. Leaving 
Sever Hall by the same door (west), and turning to 
the right, we see (southeast corner of Quincy Street 
and Broadway) the home of Professor Alexander 
Agassiz. We pass 

Appleton Chapel 

On the left, named for Samuel Appleton of Boston, 
who set apart $50,000 of his gift of $200,000 for 
this purpose. It has been greatly improved by the 



GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 19 

children of the late Nathan Appleton. The obse- 
quies of Louis Agassiz and Asa Gray, and services 
for Longfellow and Lowell, were held here. Attend- 
ance at morning prayers (from 8.45 to 9 a.m.) is vol- 
untary. The vesper services on each Thursday 
from Thanksgiving to Easter, at 5.30 p.m., are open 
to the public, the chapel usually being crowded. 

From 1744 to 1766 Holden Chapel was used 
for prayers ; later, Harvard Hall and University 
Hall. When Tutor Ashur Ware officiated at 
prayers in by gone days, his timid nature was put 
to the test by students whose colds took the form 
of very audible sneezes in this wise : "Ashur, 
ashur, ashur-ware." President Kirkland one 
morning found "pull-crackers " fastened one end 
to each cover of the Bible, and the explosion which 
followed when he opened the book turned prayers 
into admonition. In 1821, nearly all the students 
having gone to Boston to hear the elder Kean, a 
storm brought two feet of snow, and only three 
students reached Cambridge in time for morning 
prayers. Beyond Appleton Chapel, and in line 
with University Hall (the white building), is 

Thayer Hall, 

A dormitory, built in 1869-70 by Nathaniel Thayer, 
of a wealthy Boston family, in memory of his 
father, a minister of the same name, and of his 
brother, John Eliot Thayer. The 



20 GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 

Gateway at the North End of Thayer 

Was erected in 1891 by G. von L. Meyer (Harvard, 
1879), a prominent Boston gentleman. Crossing 
the open space where Cambridge Street meets 
Broadway, we stand before the 

Statue to John Harvard, 

Given by S. J. Bridge in 1883. It is of bronze, by 
French, whose fine statue of the " Minute Man " at 
Concord, with Saint-Gaudens's " Puritan," (Deacon 
Chapin), at Springfield, are together emblematic 
of the manhood and courage of the founders of New 
England. There is no likeness of John Harvard 
in existence. A few steps eastward on Cambridge 
Street brings us to the entrance to 

Memorial Hall, 

Of brick, with Dining Hall on the west, Sanders 
Theatre on the east, and the splendid square tower, 
200 feet high, in the centre. Memorial Hall was 
dedicated July 23, 1874, Charles Francis Adams 
giving the address, and Oliver Wendell Holmes the 
poem. Sanders Theatre was finished in 1876. 
The names of Harvard graduates and students 
who fell in the civil war are preserved on the mar- 
ble tablets in the transept. The portraits belong- 
ing to the college are hung on the walls of the din- 
ing-hall, and may be seen except during the hours 



2 2 GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 

for meals. Many are unique, the collection repre- 
senting well the great men of Harvard. The por- 
traits by Copley and Stuart deserve special notice. 
The busts are the work of Crawford (father of Marion 
Crawford), Hiram Powers, and others, the represen- 
tation of Longfellow being a replica of that placed in 
Westminster Abbey. 

When the students are at lunch or dinner, visitors 
may see the dining-room from the gallery, entrance 
to which is by the door on the west side of the 
transept, near the north entrance. 

In 1650 Mitchel, a graduate and tutor, thought 
so well of " Commons" that he ordered from it " a 
supper on his wedding-night." The venture has 
never been repeated. In 1746, wrote a son of 
President Holyoke, "breakfast was two sizings of 
bread and a cue of beer," and supper " a pye." 

Directly opposite this door is the entrance to 
Sanders Theatre, where Class-day and graduation 
exercises are held. The story of the founding of 
Harvard College is told in the Latin inscriptions 
over the stage. The wall back of the stage is 
ornamented with the college seal, three books 
bearing the word " Veritas " (truth). 

Josiah Quincy, a statue of whom in marble, by 
Story, stands near the stage, was the sixteenth 
president of the college. He was born in Boston 
in 1772 of a famous family which gave -its name to 



24 GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD, 

John Quin cy Adams and to the town of Quincy, 
and is still represented by the same old-fashioned 
baptismal name. He was for eight years in Con- 
gress, for six years Mayor of Boston — known as 
the " Great Mayor " — and for sixteen years presi- 
dent of Harvard. He wrote a history of the college, 
and last appeared at a meeting of the alumni in 
1863, at the age of ninety-two. 

Felton Hall, 

A private dormitory, is at the corner of Cambridge 
and Trowbridge Streets. 

Leaving Memorial Hall by the North entry, the 
old home of President Sparks, the historian, stands 
on the right at the southeast corner of Quincy and 
Kirkland Streets ; it is now occupied by the New 
Church Theological School (Swedenborgian), the 
students of which enjoy certain privileges in the 
college, although in no way connected with it. 

Here the visitor may turn to the left, following 
Kirkland Street until he reaches the 

Gymnasium, 

Built of brick with sandstone trimmings, a brick 
porch approached from either side by stone steps, 
and pointed roof with arched window in the end 
(described on p. 29). A visit, however, to the 
Peabody Museum and the Agassiz Museum should 
be made if time permits. Turning to the right on 



GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 25 

Kirkland Street (which lies on the north side of 
Memorial Hall) we reach Divinity Avenue, diagon- 
ally opposite the end of Quincy Street. 

The first large, brick building on the left side of 
Divinity Avenue as we pass along under the arch- 
ing trees is the 

Peabody Museum 

Of American Archaeology and Ethnology, open to 
visitors from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Founded by George 
Peabody, who gave in all $150,000; of this sum 
$60,000 were reserved for a building, which was fin- 
ished in 1877. The Museum preserves implements 
and ornaments relating to the aboriginal American 
races. Professor F. W. Putnam is the curator. 
In July, 1 89 1, the government of Honduras gave 
to the Museum, by a special edict, the charge of 
the antiquities of that country for ten years, with 
the privilege of bringing to the Museum one-half 
of the collection obtained by explorations of the 
ancient cities and burial places within the borders 
of the country. The Serpent Mound Park in 
Adams County, Ohio, containing the great Serpent 
Mound, is the property of the Peabody Museum. 
On the right is 

Divinity Hall, 

A plain, brick building erected in 1826, with which 
are associated such names as Wm. Ellery Channing, 
and James Freeman Clarke. Beyond is the new 



26 GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 

Divinity School Library, 

A pretty little building, with some interesting prints 
of celebrated clergymen on its walls. Back of the 
library (to the east) is Norton Field, recently laid 
out for base-ball, tennis, etc. " Shady Hill," the 
home of Charles Eliot Norton, the friend of Ruskin, 
Emerson and Carlyle, and professor of Fine Arts at 
Harvard, is just out of sight, on rising ground, 
among the trees which skirt the field. It is one of 
the few remaining historic houses in Cambridge. 
Here Arthur Hugh Clough, the poet, spent a sum- 
mer. Opposite the Divinity School is the 

Museum of Comparative Zoology, 

which, with the recent addition, leaves but one 
side to be completed to make a splendid museum 
building. The Museum (open 9 to 5, and on Sundays 
from May to November, 1 to 5) is largely the result 
of the life work of Louis Agassiz, son of a poor 
minister of Motier, Switzerland, the sixth of that 
profession in direct descent, and of Louis's son, 
Alexander, who is devoting his time and wealth to 
the work begun by his father. Entering by the 
door on the south side of the east wing and ascend- 
ing three flights we see the collections which are 
the results of expeditions to Brazil, the Straits of 
Magellan, the Pacific, and wherever specimens were 
to be obtained. After examining the birds, rep- 



GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 27 

tiles and mammals, and passing westward, we come 
to the glass flowers, a most wonderful display of 
imitations of flowers, made by Leopold and 
Rudolph Blaschka, of Germany, to whom alone 
the process of making and coloring is known. 

The Peabody Museum and the Museum of 
Zoology are distinct trusts, although both belong 
to the college ; their buildings will some time be 
united. Dom Pedro II, of Brazil, was an ardent 
friend of the Museum. Leaving the Museum by 
the west entrance we come out upon Oxford Street. 
Turning to the right, the first street on the left 
hand is Jarvis, with Holmes Field on the south and 
Jarvis Field on the north side, the one devoted to 
base-ball and the other to foot-ball and tennis. 
The new structure on the left in passing is the 

Carey Building, 

Where the crew practise in winter, in a circular 
tank, the boat being stationary while the water 
moves. The building was finished in 1890, the 
gift of Henry Astor Carey. 

Jarvis Street opens into North Avenue, which 
leads to Arlington on the right with electric cars, 
and on the left to Harvard Square and Boston. 
Walking toward the Square we pass 

Walter Hastings Hall, 

On the left, one of the finest of the college 



28 GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 

dormitories, built in 1896, costing $243,000, the 
bequest of Walter Hastings. It is in the shape of 
the letter tr 1 . The new and attractive church edi- 
fice of the North-Avenue Methodist Episcopal So- 
ciety stands close by. Not far beyond, where the 
cinder walk bends in to the left, stands the Law 
School, near the site of the old 

Holmes House. 

Judge Oliver Wendell had bought the estate in 
1807, and Rev. Abiel Holmes, when he married the 
only daughter, came here to live. The house was 
of wood with gambrel roof and three dormer 
windows, and was not unlike Wadsworth House. 
Here Oliver Wendell Holmes was born, 29 August, 
1809. It is said, as the result of a consultation 
in this house, the heights known as Bunker Hill 
were fortified, in 1775. 

Austin Hall (the Law School), 

Was erected in 1883, the bequest of Edwin Austin. 
The splendid arches over the entrance, and the 
inner construction, are characteristic of the archi- 
tect, H. H. Richardson. There are large lecture 
rooms in the east and the west wings with inclined 
floors, and another at the back of the building. 
Visitors may ascend the stairs at the left of the 
entrance and see the library, an attractive room with 
open fireplace, old portraits, and a pleasant view 



Gossiping guide to harvard. 29 

over Holmes Field and the Common. The Law 
School is in a very prosperous condition, offering a 
preparation second to none in the country. 

In 18 1 5 the Isaac Royall professorship was es- 
tablished, and was first held by Chief Justice Parker 
of Massachusetts. Judge Joseph Story of the Su- 
preme Court of the United States first held the Dane 
professorship, founded by Hon. Nathan Dane. 

In 1832 the Law School was moved from old 
College House to Dane Hall on Harvard Square, 
which was its home for fifty years. Walking 
down the path before Austin Hall, the Gymnasium 
stands on the left, facing to the south. The 

Hemenway Gymnasium 

Was erected in 1879 by Peabody & Stearns, of 
Boston, at a cost of $100,000, the gift of Augustus 
Hemenway (H. U., 1875). Entering under the brick 
porch on the south side, and turning through the 
doorway at the left, we stand in the main room. 
Above there is a running track, and in the base- 
ment there are bowling alleys. The wash-rooms 
and " lockers " for clothes are on the first floor at 
the right (not open to the public) and in the base- 
ment. The Gymnasium is free to all students of 
the University, but a fee is charged for lockers. 

The Lawrence Scientific School, 
Just east of the Gymnasium, was founded in 1847 



$0 GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 

by Abbott Lawrence of Boston. Prof. Horsford 
was placed in charge of the chemical department 
and Prof. Agassiz took the chair of zoology and 
geology. President Eliot at one time, as an assist- 
ant professor of chemistry, was connected with the 
School. The lectures in philosophy and psychol- 
ogy, by Prof. William James (brother of Henry 
James, the novelist) formerly were given here. The 

Jefferson Physical Laboratory, 

North of the Scientific School, was finished in 
1884, at a cost of $115,000, the gift of Thomas 
Jefferson Coolidge, of Boston, appointed minister 
to France in 1892. Leaving the Gymnasium by 
the gate near the Scientific School, and crossing 
the street, we enter the college yard again, with 
Stoughton Hall on the right and 

Holworthy Hall 

On the left, the latter forming the north side of 
the quadrangle. Built by the proceeds from a lot- 
tery in 1812, and named for Sir Matthew Holworthy 
of Hackney, England, who left in 1678 at his death 
,£1000 sterling to the college. The suites occupy 
the whole depth of the building and make it a desira- 
ble dormitory in spite of its age. No. 12 Holworthy 
was visited in i860 by the Prince of Wales, and in 
187 1 by the Grand Duke Alexis of Russia, both of 
whom gave their photographs to adorn the walls. 



GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 3 1 

Stoughton Hall, 

At the northwest corner of the yard, adjoining Hol- 
worthy, was built in 1805, chiefly by money raised 
in a" lottery, keeping the name of the old hall 
erected by Lieutenant-Governor Stoughton (H. U., 
1650) in 1700. The old hall stood west of Univer- 
sity Hall, at a right angle with Massachusetts and 
Harvard halls. It sheltered 240 men during the 
revolution and was taken down in 1780. In the 
present building lived : 

Oliver Wendell Holmes, No. 31. 

Edward Everett, No. 23. 

Edward Everett Hale, No. 22. 

Charles Sumner, No. 12. 

Caleb Cushing, No. 26. 
In line with Stoughton and to the south stands 

Hollis Hall, 

Erected in 1763, and named for the family of 
Thomas Hollis, of London, who founded two pro- 
fessorships in the college. His first gift, in 17 19, 
was an invoice of hardware to a Boston merchant 
for the benefit of Harvard. Seven of the family 
were givers to the college. In 1775 the Provincial 
Congress took possession of the buildings, and the 
students were compelled to leave their rooms. In 
the early days Hollis was the home of many clubs ; 
one called the Medical Faculty or " Med. Fac." 



32 GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 

< 

had mock lectures in Room 13 and sent one of its 
degrees to the Emperor of Russia, who gave in 
return a case of handsome instruments, which was 
gladly appropriated by the medical professors of 
the college. Among the distinguished men who 
roomed in Hollis were : 

Edward Everett, Nos. 20 and 24. 

W. H. Prescott, Nos. 6 and ii. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nos. 5, 15 and 20. 

Charles Sumner, No. 17. 

Wendell Phillips, Nos. 11, 16 and 18. 

Henry D. Thoreau, Nos. 20, 23, 31 and 32. 
Between Stoughton and Hollis, and a little to the 
west, stands 

Holden Chapel, 

A small, brick building, erected in 1744 through 
the influence of Benjamin Colman, first pastor of 
the Brattle-street Church, Boston (H. U., 1692), 
the same whose election to the presidency of 
Harvard later (declined) caused the disappointed 
Cotton Mather to write : " The Corporation of o r 
Miserable Colledge do again treat me with their 
accustomed Indignity and Malignity." Colman on 
a voyage to England fell into the hands of a French 
privateer, France being then at war with Great 
Britain, and reached London after long imprison- 
ment without a penny. Here a kind lady be- 
friended him, and her son, Hon. Samuel Holden 



GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 33 

M. P., and governor of the Bank of England, found 
the young man's company very agreeable. Through 
this friendship so romantically started came some 
5000 pounds to Harvard, and after Mr. Holden's 
death 400 pounds from Mrs. Holden and her 
daughters for a chapel. 

All matters of moment were announced " at 
prayers." On one memorable occasion the Faculty 
considered the disposition of a keg of bad butter, and 
at prayer time the president gravely announced 
that as the butter could not be eaten on bread it 
would be used in the making of sauce. 

Cotton Mather's frequent attempts to win the 
presidency led him to imagine the college in a sad 
state without his governing hand, with 'stealing, 
swearing, idleness, picking of locks and too fre- 
quent use of strong drink," besides students going 
into town on Sabbath mornings for breakfast. In 
1734 the following fines in shillings and pence were 
to be imposed among others : 

s.d. 

Tardiness at prayers 1 

Absence from prayers 2 

Absence from Professor's public lecture 4 

Sending Freshmen on errands in study time 9 

Drunkenness, taking lead from the roof 1.6 

Profane swearing, firing guns or pistols in College yard, 

undergraduates playing cards, etc 2.6 

Neglecting analysing 3. 

Graduates playing cards, opening doors by pick -locks 5. 

In the square between Holden, Hollis and the 

back of Harvard Hall stands the 



34 GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 

Class-Day Tree, 

Still marked where the bands of roses have each 
year been strung to be striven for by rough-clothed 
Seniors after the class song has been sung. The 
ladies sit on the raised seats, and graduates and 
students occupy the grass between the seats and 
the graduating class about the tree. 

"These seats and the windows in the stories 
above them," says Mr. Howells in his novel, "April 
Hopes," "were densely packed with people, mostly 
young girls dressed in a thousand enchanting 
shades and colors . . . They were like vast 
terraces of flowers to the swift glance, and here 
and there some brilliant parasol, spread to catch 
the sun on the higher ranks, was like a flaunting 
poppy, rising to the light. In front . . . stood 
the Class-day Tree, girded at ten or fifteen feet from 
the ground with a wide band of flowers . . . 
In the midst of the tumult the marshal flung his 
hat at the elm ; then the rush upon the tree took 
place, and the scramble for the flowers. 
Yells, cries, and clappings of hands came from the 
other students and the spectators in the seats, in- 
voluntarily dying away almost to silence as some 
stronger or wilfuller aspirant held his own on the 
heads and shoulders of the others, or was stayed 
there by his friends among them till he could make 
sure of a handful of the flowers." 



GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 35 

At the southwest corner of Hollis Hall is 
Harvard Hall, and opposite Harvard stands Mass- 
achusetts, with the main entrance to the college 
grounds leading from the gate of brick and wrought- 
iron to the doors of University Hall across the 
quadrangle. 

University Hall, 

The first stone building in the college, was erected 
in 1815, on the spot, it is said, where Prof. Wig- 
glesworth used to water his cow. It is built of 
Chelmsford granite, costing $65,000. Here were 
once the college chapel, constructed by Bulfinch, 
and the Commons or dining hall ; a little to the 
east was the college pig-pen. In University Hall 
were held Commencement exercises, and great men 
dined under its roof. President Monroe was enter- 
tained here July 7, 18 17, General Lafayette on 
August 25, 1824, and Andrew Jackson and Martin 
Van Buren on June 26, 1833. 

There are those who still remember the latter 
two, the one tall, gray-haired and gaunt, the other 
shorter, with Dutch features and reddish hair. 
Jackson, says an observer, seemed to regard the 
Latin oration of Mr. Bowen "with blank amaze- 
ment." 

In 1842 Commons were discontinued, and in 
1867 the chapel was cut up into recitation rooms. 



36 GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 

The offices of the president and secretary are on 
the second floor of the south entry, where informa- 
tion concerning the college may be obtained. 

Mr. Longfellow gave his first lecture on litera- 
ture and literary life at No. 3 University Hall. He 
wrote to a friend : " Miserable room, to begin with. 
Windows behind me and behind my audience, so 
that I could not see them nor they me. 1 had as 
lief lecture through a key-hole." At the south- 
west corner of Hoilis stands 

Harvard Hall, 
With steps on the south, and bell tower, built on 
the site of old Harvard Hall in 1765-66. In early 
times the west room was the chapel, the east room 
a dining hall, with the library over the former and 
a lecture room over the latter. The bell called 
students to prayers (at 6 a.m.) and many attempts 
were made to silence it ; once by gunpowder, when 
the student, being detected, ran down the roof of 
Harvard and jumped across to Hoilis; in 1861 by 
a pail of tar, with which a student jumped from 
Hoilis to Harvard; and once more by a large 
turkey tied to the bell's tongue as a present for the 
janitor, but this worthy saw it in time to be able to 
ring the bell at the usual hour. During the Revo- 
lution Harvard Hall was occupied by the American 
Army, and the pork brought in by country people 
for the soldiers was stored here. In 18 17 Presi- 



GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 37 

dent Monroe examined the "library, then in the 
building. Harvard is now used for small, special 
libraries in History and in the Classics, and as a 
recitation hall. 

In 1693 the college voted that a student should 
be fined 20 shillings for having plum cake in 
chambers " as dishonorable to the college and not 
grateful to wise men." 

Freshmen, in early times, upon entering college, 
were assembled in Harvard Hall to hear the " Cus- 
toms." No Freshman could wear his hat in the 
college yard except in rain, snow or hail, or having 
both his hands full. No Freshman could speak to 
a Senior with his hat on. Freshmen were to go on 
errands for upper-classmen, except in study hours 
or after 9 in the evening, and must make no delay. 
These rules and many more were read aloud in 
chapel by a member of the Sophomore class. 
Opposite Harvard is 

Massachusetts Hall, 

Now used for recitations, completed in 1720 at a 
cost of 3500 pounds in Provincial currency, and 
the oldest college building now standing. It was 
for 150 years used as a dormitory. In 1776 bar- 
racks for the soldiers were here, and recitations 
were held in the court-house at Concord. The 
thickness of the walls and the beams in the ceiling 
can be seen by approaching the windows. The 



38 GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD 

" New Gate," as it has been familiarly called, was 
completed in 1890, the gift of Samuel Johnston, 
of Chicago, according to the Latin inscription cut 
in the stone. The brick and iron work are in 
harmony with the buildings near which it stands ; 
the round stones on the pillars came from York- 
shire. The tablets on the right and left walls of 
the gate are of special interest. 

We have now seen the greater part of Harvard. 
The few remaining buildings are hardly within the 
limits of a "walk about Harvard," and a note 
concerning each will be found at the end of this 
book. It may be pleasant here, as we leave the 
college grounds, to recall the words of Mr. W. D. 
Howells in his " Suburban Sketches " : " There is 
much good fortune in the world, but none better 
than being an undergraduate twenty years old, 
hale, handsome, fashionably dressed, with the whole 
promise of life before : it's a state of things to dis- 
arm even envy." 

We may now turn to the left, to Harvard Square, 
and from there go by car to Mount Auburn, past 
Mr. Longfellow's house, or reach the same points 
of interest by a walk including the old burying 
ground, Christ Church, the Annex and the Wash- 
ington Elm. 

Opposite the western entrance to the college 
yard stands the 



GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 39 

First Parish Church, 
(Unitarian, Rev. Edward H. Hall, pastor), with 
the old burying ground at the right where lie 
Thomas Shepard, whose " soul-refreshing " ministry 
caused the college to be established near his 
church ; Stephen Daye, the first printer in this part 
of America, and many college presidents. The 
first work printed within the present limits of the 
United States was " The Freeman's Oath. Printed 
by S. Daye, 1639." This was on the face of a 
small sheet of paper. The first book, "The Whole 
Booke of Psalmes Faithfully Translated into Eng- 
lish Metre," 1640, more familiarly known as the 
"Bay Psalm Book," is delightfully described in 
Mrs. Alice Morse Earle's "The Sabbath in Puritan 
New England." At this little press in Harvard 
Square American literature was born. Rev. Jesse 
Glover had engaged Daye in England to be his 
assistant, but, dying on the voyage out, the assis- 
tant managed the " printery " until his son, Mat- 
thew Daye, took up the work in 1647. The Widow 
Glover was not forgotten, for President Dunster, 
who sleeps near Stephen Daye, made her his wife in 
1 641 . Next to the First Parish Church to the west is 
Christ Church, 

Like sentinel and nun, they keep 

Their vigil on the green: 
One seems to guard, and one to weep, 

The dead that lie between. 

— Holmes. 



40 GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 

Christ Church was opened in 1761, with the Rev. 
East Apthorp as rector. The Connecticut militia 
were quartered here in June, 1775 ; the pipes of the 
organ were melted into bullets. General and Mrs. 
Washington attended service in Christ Church on 
the last Sunday of 1775. The chime of thirteen 
bells was the gift of Harvard alumni when the 
church completed its first hundred years. At this 
time the tomb of a prominent Tory, Henry Vassall, 
under the church, was opened to receive the body 
of Darby Vassall, ninety-two years old, formerly his 
slave, and born in his house at Cambridge. 

The Washington Elm, 

Under which Washington is said to have drawn his 
sword on taking command of the American Army, 
July 3, 1775, stands before the Shepard Memorial 
Church, at the end of Mason Street. The inscrip- 
tion was written by Longfellow. In this tree a 
lookout was built, and here Washington came day 
after day to watch the British ships in the harbor 
and the fortifications in Boston. In the winter of 
1776 the farmers, many with their own guns, were 
camped on the Common. They had the courage 
and endurance of Captain Whittemore, who, when 
the " regulars " passed through North Cambridge 
on the retreat from Concord that memorable day 
in April, 1775, lay behind a stone wall and picked 
off the Redcoats until a bullet shattered his cheek- 



GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 41 

bone. Then the British rushed upon him and 
pounded his head witk their guns until they said, 
"We have killed the old rebel." Yet Captain 
Whittemore lived to see the country at peace with 
Great Britain, dying in 1793. On the southeast 
corner of Garden and Mason streets is the 

Harvard Annex (Fay House), 

Or the Society for the Collegiate Instruction of 
Women, established in 1879 by Mr. Arthur 
Oilman. It has for its object the obtaining for 
women the best instruction given in Harvard. At 
the opening of the Annex there were twenty seven 
women instructed by Harvard professors, forty of 
whom offered their services. Now, in its thir- 
teenth year, there are two hundred women taught 
by seventy professors. The students come from 
all parts of the country ; from the Pacific coast 
and the Sandwich Islands. They board in the 
various Cambridge homes, and recite at Fay House. 
The enhance examinations are the same as those 
at Harvard, and the Certificates given to the grad- 
uates state that the holders have performed the 
work required by Harvard College for its B. A. 
degree. The Certificates are awarded upon the 
recommendation of an Academic Board composed 
almost exclusively of Harvard professors. Mr. 
Oilman says: ''The free use of the University 
Library is counted as our greatest privilege, apart 



42 GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 

from the services of those men whose work has 
given to Harvard College its fame." The en- 
dowment fund is now over $100,000, but more is 
needed. Professor Norton said in public: 
" There is no opportunity for earthly immortality 
comparable to that presented to the person who 
should give a sufficient sum to place the Annex 
upon a proper financial basis." Mrs. Louis Agassiz 
is the president of the society, and Miss Alice 
Longfellow one of the executive committee. 

Miss Helen Leah Reed of Boston, a graduate of 
the Harvard Annex, and winner of the Sargent prize 
in 1890, says: "Although it is hard to tell just why 
the Washington Elm at Cambridge acts as a mag- 
net to draw around it educational institutions, it is 
perfectly true that within a stone's throw of the old 
tree there is a surprisingly large number of such 
establishments. A walk of a couple of minutes 
in one direction leads one to the fence enclosing 
the Harvard quadrangle. An even shorter walk in 
another direction brings one to the picturesque 
buildings of St. John's Episcopal Theological 
School. The windows of Fay House, the home of 
the Harvard Annex, look down directly on the his- 
toric elm, and on each side of Fay House are two 
large, old-fashioned dwellings, each now used as 
schools — one for boys, the other for girls. The 
latter of these, The Cambridge School, is under 
the directorship of Mr. Arthur Gilman. Attracted 



GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 43 

by its advantages, not a few families from other 
states have taken Up a residence of several years 
in Cambridge in order to place their daughters in 
The Cambridge School. As applications contin- 
ued to come from others who wished to send their 
daughters without going themselves to Cambridge 
to live, Mr. Gilman decided to build Margaret 
Winthrop Hall, where these young girls might be 
as comfortably situated as at home. Margaret 
Winthrop Hall, named in honor of the wife of John 
Winthrop, the founder of Boston, is a roomy house 
on Chauncy Street, colonial in general style, but 
modern in all its appointments." 
Opposite Fay House is the 

Shepard Memorial Church, 

Founded in 1636. The present building was 
erected in 187 1 ; Rev. Alexander McKenzie, sec- 
retary of the Board of Overseers of Harvard, is the 
present pastor. The gilt cockerel on the spire was 
placed over the New Brick Church, Boston, in 1721. 
Dr. Holmes, writing on the occasion of the twenty- 
fifth anniversary of Dr. McKenzie's ministry, says : 
"I can restore much that has long vanished with- 
out calling in the aid of an architect. The old 
yellow meeting-house stands there in my mind's 
eye, with its square pews, its threatening sounding- 
board, its dripping stove funnel, and the familiar 
figures that filled the pews in my childhood — Judge 



44 GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 

Winthrop; good, blind old Rev. Mr. Mellen ; the 
Miss Howes, ancient ladies, of whom I always 
thought when reading Goldsmith's ' Madam Blaize.' 
... I feel as if I could put all these families 
back in their pews as a printer distributes his types 
in their boxes." In passing it may be said that the 

Botanic Garden 

Is on the northwest corner of Garden and Lin- 
naean streets, a short walk from the Washington 
Elm. In 1857 the present conservatory was built, 
Asa Gray having become Fisher professor of 
Natural History in 1842. The garden occupies 
about seven acres, and has more than 5000 spe- 
cies of flowering plants. The collection of cacti 
and orchids is very fine, and the flower gardens in 
summer are worthy a visit. Diagonally opposite 
(corner Bond and Garden streets) is the 

Astronomical Observatory; 

The grounds only are open to visitors. The Ob- 
servatory was removed from Dana House in 1844, 
receiving in 1849 f rom E. B. Phillips $100,000. 
The work of the Observatory is preserved in its 
"Annals." The director is Edward C. Pickering. 
By the mutual consent of astronomers, the Kiel 
and Harvard Observatories have been selected as 
the centres for the prompt announcement of astro- 
nomical discoveries. About forty assistants take 



GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 45 

part in the work here, with others at the various 
stations, from Blue Hill, near Boston, as far away 
as Arequipa, Peru. 

Mr. W. D. Howells, while editor of the Atlantic 
Monthly, lived on Concord Avenue (No. 37), near 
Bond Street, having moved from Berkeley Street, 
upon which Mr. John Fiske, the historian, has his 
home. 

From the Shepard Memorial Church, following 
Mason Street to Brattle, and turning to the right, 
we pass St. John's Memorial Chapel and the 

Episcopal Theological School, 

A restful and harmonious group of buildings ; the 
school was founded in 1867. Rev. William Law- 
rence, Dean of the school, lives in the large square 
building west of the main dormitory. St. John's 
Memorial Chapel, built in 1869 by Robert Means 
Mason of Boston, as a memorial of his wife and 
brother, the Rev. Charles Mason, D. D., is a beau- 
tiful cruciform edifice of Roxbury granite and free- 
stone. Lawrence Hall, to the left, completed in 
1880, the gift of Amos A. Lawrence, contains 
thirty-seven rooms for students. Reed Hall, in the 
centre, named after Benjamin T. Reed, the founder 
of the school, contains a library and six lecture- 
rooms. Burnham Hall, behind the chapel, built in 
1879 D y tne l ate John A. Burnham, contains a din- 
ing-room to accommodate over 100 students. Rev. 



46 GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 

George Zabriskie Gray, D. D., and Rev. Elisha 
Mulford, D. D., author of " The Nation " and " The 
Republic of God," were connected with this insti- 
tution before their deaths. The library of Har- 
vard University is open to members of the school. 
The next residence to that of Rev. William Law- 
rence is 

Craigie House, 

Followed by the homes of Mr. Longfellow's daugh- 
ters, Mrs. R. H. Dana and Mrs. J. G. Thorp, Jr. 
Craigie House standing back from the street, shut 
off by a white-lilac hedge, was built in 1759 by 
Col. John Vassall, a wealthy Tory whose estates 
were confiscated during the war. Washington and 
his wife lived here during the winter of 1775-76. 
The southeast room, now the study, was used as a 
dining-room ; the chamber above was Washing- 
ton's private room. The Vassall mansion was pur- 
chased in 1 79 1 by Andrew Craigie, apothecary- 
general to the Continental Army, and with his 
widow Longfellow came to board in 1837, after- 
ward becoming the owner. In the southeast room 
" Voices of the Night " and " Hyperion " were 
written. Opposite Craigie House is the park laid 
out in memory of the poet, reaching nearly to the 
banks of the " Charles." Over this open space he 
used to look in the quiet hours of twilight and 
evening, and he himself has said ; 



48 GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 

" Oft in sadness and in illness 
I have watched thy current glide, 

Till the beauty of its stillness 
Overflowed me like a tide." 

The third house from Mr. Longfellow's, west, on 
the same side of the street, was the home of Joseph 
E. Worcester, the author of Worcester's Dictionary. 
The home of Thomas Wentworth Higginson is on 
Buckingham Street, which leads from Craigie 
Street. 

Passing along the right side of Brattle Street, at 
the northwest corner of Sparks Street, where 

The old house by the lindens 
. Stood silent in the shade, 
And on the gravelled pathway 
The light and shadow played, 

We see at the western corner of Channing and 
Brattle streets the 

Home of Governor Russell. 

The next street on the left is Elmwood Avenue, 
with the home of Lowell on the west side. The 
old mansion, known as 

"Elmwood," 

Was built in 1760 and occupied ten years later by 
Thomas Oliver, last Lieutenant-Governor under 
the crown. In 18 18 Rev. Charles Lowell bought 




Interior of Craigie Houst 



50 GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 

Elmwood, a year before the poet was born. James 
Russell Lowell became professor of Modern Lan- 
guages at Harvard in 1854, succeeding Mr. Long- 
fellow. He was sent later as Minister to Spain and 
then to England. Longfellow wrote, May 29, 1846 : 
" Called to see Lowell this morning ; and climbed 
to his celestial study, with its pleasant prospects 
through the small, square windows, and its ceiling 
so low you can touch it with your hand. Read 
Donne's poems, while he went down to feed his 
hens and chickens." 

Mr. Raymond Blathwayt, a well-known London 
journalist, writes of his interview with Mr. Lowell : 

He is seated in an arm-chair with his back to that far- 
famed " study window," out of which he has so often gazed. 
He sits there and looks quietly at his visitor, now and again 
raising a delicate hand to stroke his beard and mustache, or 
to press down the tobacco ashes in the very small pipe he is 
smoking. The room is very untidy, papers lie scattered 
about, there is a little bust in the corner, a dog lies sleeping 
on the hearth-rug. The great simplicity impresses me forci- 
bly. I can scarcely realize to myself that I am sitting quite 
alone with one of the most famous of living men. I recall 
but dimly the pictures on the wall. A portrait of Tennyson 
he specially valued. I commented upon the portrait of his 
own brother-in-law, the celebrated orator, George William 
Curtis, with whom I had very recently been lunching. "Ah," 
said Mr. Lowell, " I am glad you have met him ; he is a man 
in a thousand; you ought to have had him and not me at St. 
James's." . . . As we stood a moment in the sunshine — 
for he himself came to the door with me — I commented 



52 GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 

on the very English aspect of his little home. " I am glad 
you think so, but it is easily explained. We have lived here 
for some generations. At the back of the kitchen fire-range 
you will find the royal arms of England and the monogram 
G. R. My grandmother, you know, was a loyalist to her 
death, and whenever Independence Day (July 4th) came 
round, instead of joining in the general rejoicing, she would 
dress in deep black, fast all day, and loudly lament ' our late 
unhappy difference with His Most Gracious Majesty.' " The 
strains of a distant waltz floated by on the summer air. Mr. 
Lowell smiled. " Dear me, that does remind me of England ! 
I think I heard that last at Lady Kenmare's. How music 
can link the present with the past ! " It was a curious reflec- 
tion — a reflection that lost none of its interest as I looked at 
him who had uttered it. As I passed down the little path, 
I turned once again to look at the gentle figure, standing frail 
and delicate, with fast-whitening hair and beard, illumined by 
the light of the westering sun. An unerring presentiment 
stole upon me that even then he was fast passing " to where 
beyond these voices there is peace " ; and, alas ! that now it 
is so. 

Retracing our steps to Brattle Street and turning 
westward we reach the Egyptian entrance gate to 

Mount Auburn Cemetery, 

Consecrated in 183 1 and containing more than 
thirty miles of avenues and paths. Following 
Fountain Avenue, the first roadway to the left from 
the entrance, we reach, after a short walk, the grave 
of James Russell Lowell, on the right, with an old- 
fashioned slate slab with angel's head and wings, 
and the following inscription : 



GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 53 

Sacred to the memory 

of 

James Russell Lowell. 

Born 1819. Died 1S91. 

And of his wife, 

Maria White. 

Born 1821. Died 1853. 

And also of his second wife, 

Frances Dunlap. 

Born 1825. Died 1885. 

Near by are the names of two of his children : 
Blanche, "a lily of a day," 1847, and Rose, 1849- 
1850. 

Ascending the path just beyond until it reaches 
Indian Ridge, directly above the grave of Lowell, 
and at the entrance to Catalpa Path, we stand 
before the sarcophagus bearing the single name : 
Longfellow. Following Catalpa Path, but bear- 
ing to the west and crossing Central Avenue, to 
Cyprus Avenue, we come at length to Martin Mil- 
more's Sphinx, a memorial of those who died for the 
Union. Leaving the Sphinx and the Gothic granite 
chapel opposite, we follow Cyprus to Walnut Ave- 
nue, approaching the round tower which rises sixty- 
two feet from the ground. The red stone sarcoph- 
agus of the great orator, Rufus Choate, is on the 
left. 

Near the base of the tower is Pyrola Path lead- 
ing from Walnut Avenue to the monument of Mar- 
garet Fuller, the famous critic and friend of Emer- 



54 GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD 

son, and her husband, the Marquis Ossoli, of Italy. 
Just beyond is an open gate, and Within stands, over 
the grave of Agassiz, a granite boulder brought from 
the glacier of the Aar in Switzerland. Near the 
tower will be found the grave of Charlotte Cush- 
man, the great tragic actress (Palm Avenue), and 
not far away, that of Charles Sumner, statesman 
and friend of Longfellow (Arethusa Path, leading 
from Walnut). Other interesting graves are those 
of President Jared Sparks, historian, Garden Ave- 
nue ; N. P. Willis, poet, Spruce Avenue ; Anson 
Burlingame, Spruce Avenue ; Dr. J. E. Worcester, 
lexicographer, Aster Path, near Consecration Dell ; 
President Josiah Quincy, Sweetbriar Path, leading 
from Chestnut Avenue ; John G. Palfrey, historian, 
Sweetbriar Path ; Edward Everett, Magnolia Ave- 
nue, near tower; "Fanny Fern," sister of N. P. 
Willis, Eglantine Path, leading from Fir to Spruce ; 
James T. Fields, Elder Path, leading from Walnut 
to Spruce ; Rev. William Ellery Channing, Green- 
briar Path, leading from Pine Avenue ; Henry F. 
Durant, founder of Wellesley College, Osier Path, 
leading from Willow Avenue to Indian Ridge 
Path. 

And where better than here can we take leave of 
the visitor, whose guide and companion we have 
thus far been, than standing upon ground sacred to 
the memory of those who have made Cambridge 
famous in every land ? 



GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 55 

The associations of Mount Auburn will bring to 
mind the eloquence of Sumner and Choate, and 
the poetry of Longfellow and Lowell. Few in this 
great country can have the fortune to recall a 
friendship with one such as these ; therefore, the 
words of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, written for 
the Lowell Memorial Number of the Cambridge 
Tribune^ will have a special interest here. 

Holmes on Lowell. 

You ask me for a brief contribution to your Memorial Num- 
ber, to be published on the Birthday of James Russell Lowell. 
I wish I were more competent for the service, but I cannot 
withhold my slight tribute to the memory of one whose 
friendship it was my precious privilege to enjoy during half 
of my lifetime. 

It is needless to attempt to add anything to the praises 
which have been bestowed without stint upon our admired 
and beloved townsman. Yet a few words from me will not 
be out of place, and I am more than willing to comply with 
your request. We were both Cambridge boys, both Harvard 
students and graduates, both writers in the pages of the same 
periodical, of which he was the editor, and to which I was for 
some years the most constant contributor. Yet our acquain- 
tance did not begin until he had reached the age of full man- 
hood. He was nearly ten years younger than I. His home 
was a mile distant from mine. We went to different schools 
and attended different places of worship, he at his father's 
church in Boston, I at my father's church in Cambridge. I 
knew nothing of his early companions, and he knew nothing 
of mine. I graduated in 1829 and he in 1838. So it happens 
that I have absolutely nothing to tell about that period of his 
life when his character was forming, and must leave all that 



56 GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 

to the school-mates and college-mates who can recall those 
far-away days. 

The first distinct personal relation between us was through 
a letter which he wrote me at a time when he was greatly 
interested in certain reforms, while I was engrossed with my 
professional studies, now and then writing verses for some 
special occasion, but keeping only a slight hold upon litera- 
ture. He wrote to induce me to use my gifts, which he spoke 
of in handsome terms, to further some larger purpose than 
those to which my fugitive efforts had been directed. It 
was a generous, manly letter, and I never forgot it, though 
if I profited by it, it was not until a later stage in my devel- 
opment. 

In 1857, when the publication of the Atlantic Monthly was 
contemplated, he agreed to become editor of the magazine, 
but he insisted that I should be a contributor. I yielded to 
his persuasions and wrote for every number during the first 
three years of its publication. But for his persistence I doubt 
whether I should have begun my second literary career. 
From that time forward we were friends, — it is not too much 
to say intimates. He was one of the three old friends 
who addressed me by the name most familiar to my boyhood. 
The others were the late John Osborn Sargent, and the third, 
happily still left, one of my few surviving class-mates, our first 
scholar, whom it is a double pleasure to meet, because he calls 
me what he did when we were at Dame Prentiss's school to- 
gether. Lowell and I were always for these many years 
"James" and "Wendell." With me that means a great 
deal ; it seems to make us of one blood, almost of one house- 
hold. Old eyes grow dim all too easily and the page is blurred 
before me as I write. It saddens me to think that I shall 
never again hear that name from his lips, — never on 
earth, that is ; for I love to think that when life greets 
us with its new " Good morning," we may be welcomed 



GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 57 

by the familiar names which belonged to our earliest recollec- 
tions. 

I am thinking now not of Lowell's wonderful gifts and 
acquirements, but of his charming companionship. If he had 
any fault in that relation it was a too generous estimate of 
his friends. He loved to approve anything which they had 
done, and may sometimes have been partial in his judgment. 
Yet he had the courage to warn a friend if he thought he was 
falling short of his own standard of excellence. In general 
company his talk was easy, lively, witty, good-humored, often 
jocular, and was capable of condescending to a pun when the 
temptation was strong. With all his vast reading he was not 
in the habit of quoting passages of prose or verse from the 
authors with whom be was familiar. I speak with some 
hesitation, but I question whether he remembered continuous 
extracts as readily and surely as some of his literary contem- 
poraries, — Browning, for instance. But on all literary ques- 
tions he was an encylopedia of information. His mind was too 
robust to be smothered under any load of erudition. Without 
any of that nervous irritability which belongs to over-sensitive 
and under-vitalized organizations, he was alive, alive all over, 
to the shows of the outer world and the movements in the 
inner world of consciousness. He had an eye and an ear for 
the trees and flowers and birds of Elmwood ; he recognized 
elements of beauty in the lazy Charles, which flowed by his 
windows, its waters now brackish and turbid from the inland 
streams, now salt and lucid from the ocean. Its broken and 
reedy banks, the monotonous expanse of its marshes, were 
dear to his indulgent outlook. There are no gifts so munifi- 
cent as those which the poet's eye bestows upon its humblest 
surroundings. 

In the study of character, especially as he observed it in 
New England, and of dialect as one form of its expression, he 
was as accurate as if the preservation of those traits and 



58 GOSSIPING GUIDE TO HARVARD. 

idioms had been left to him as their sole depositary. His 
" Yankee Idyls " are as true to the native talk of the rustics 
of his early remembrance as " Bonny Doon " and "Auld Lang 
Syne "to the language of the Scotch peasantry. In the 
higher range of poetry he excelled more especially in the 
portraiture of exalted characters, as that of Lincoln in his 
Commemoration Ode, and that of Washington in the poem 
delivered beneath the historic elm on our Cambridge Com- 
mon. 

All his brilliant natural endowments, all his vast accumula- 
tions of learning and experience, left him as simple in his 
every-day habits, as cordial in his old friendships, as void of 
pretension, as truly natural, in the best sense of the word, as 
if he had never known what it was to be flattered and 
caressed. As an American scholar, as an American gentle- 
man, as a patriotic citizen, his character furnishes an ideal 
standard. Friendship, which remembers all the endearing 
qualities that formed a part of his amply-filled and rounded 
nature, has no need of exaggeration in speaking his praises. 
But we may truly say that the birthday of the Father of his 
Country gains an additional ray of lustre from having also 
been that of James Russell Lowell. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 



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